


the necks of best friends

by paeoniia



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Self-Worth Issues, sylvain/town girl at the beginning sorry all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26611807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paeoniia/pseuds/paeoniia
Summary: Sylvain's racing thoughts keep him from being able to do anything, until he finds something to focus them on. Namely, his best friend.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	the necks of best friends

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i havent written a fic in probably over 5 years... wanted to write something for sylvix week so! i think this kind.. of... fits day 2: yearning/pining! this is drabbley and rambley and i apologize. enjoy anyway, hopefully!

Wet, full lips press against Sylvain’s neck, kissing harshly. Sloppy, and too sharp. Sylvain breathes out, but it isn’t harsh--it’s slow, and even, the way a particularly boring lecture from Byleth could drag out of him. Sylvain doesn’t want to acknowledge the issue, closing his eyes and trying to get lost in the moment. His hands shift lower, and he squeezes. Her breathing is harsher, and he winces as he feels her teeth against his neck.

“You can’t leave a mark, babe,” Sylvain breathes, shifting back to get her lips off his skin. She looks up at him, full lips in a pout and brows drawing together. Ah, he already feels like this is going to be more trouble than it's worth with that look on her face. 

“Why not? I want the other girls that look at you to know you’re taken.”

Sylvain does not--and he doesn’t think his various other girlfriends will be very happy to see a love bite they didn’t leave on his neck either. “There’s no one else for me but you.” He knows what to say, and he knows how to say it to make her believe. He leans to press a kiss to the crook of skin between her jaw and her neck. 

It isn’t enough. Her hands push him away, and he resists the impulse to roll his eyes. “I don’t like how they look at you.”

“I know, I know, but you have to trust me.” She doesn’t fold. “I’m at the Officer’s Academy. I can’t show up with a mark on my neck.”

 _Goddess, please relent._ _Make this less insufferable._ She doesn’t respond one way or the other, so Sylvain leans in again, letting his lips kiss a little lower. He mimics her, pinching her skin between his teeth, sucking harsh and hard as he tries to break her blood vessels. Her body untenses, and her hands slide down his shoulders as she breathes out. “You can tell all the girls that I gave you this,” he whispers against her skin. She makes a short whimper. Any other night, the sound would go straight to his dick. He’s not really sure what the problem is. 

Her hands move to his ass, pull him closer, but his body still isn’t responding to the cues. He can’t hear his heart pounding. He can feel her heat, but his own body isn’t warming in turn. He definitely isn’t hard. He feels… bored. He presses her against the wall, hands sliding against her thighs. They’re smooth, and soft, and what’s better than that? Get into it. _Get into it._ He catches her lips again, able to taste her breath on his tongue in the moments she fumbles for breath. Her hands move to his waistband, and he feels the sharpness of her fingernails graze the skin of his hips.

“Actually--” he finds himself saying against her cheek, “We should stop.”

“We--what?”

“I’m sorry.” He catches her wrists, gently pulling her hands away from his pants so she doesn’t realize how little he’s into this. His thumbs glide against her veins, soft against sensitive skin. “I have a class early tomorrow. If we keep going I doubt you’ll let me get any sleep.” He nips at the skin of her jaw playfully, and she seems conflicted between being upset at him and being aroused over him, a predicament he would prefer to the one he’s in at the moment.

“You shouldn’t have come out, then.” She’s sulking. It’s not very attractive, but she thinks it is. He suppresses the urge to roll his eyes again.

“I know, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see you…” He reaches to touch the back of his neck, knowing that the sheepish gesture, combined with how built his arms are, tends to get most girls back on his good side. She shrugs a little, but she looks down and he can see heat on her cheeks. Honestly, there isn’t even a challenge to it. He feels less and less bad about lying the more they believe him.

“When, then?”

When, then…? In truth, this girl is gorgeous. She had caught Sylvain’s eye instantly--she stood out of a crowd. He’d wanted her desperately when he’d seen her, but it was always too easy to pull. Was it this easy for everyone? The reasoning behind everything made him feel anxious. But the idea of seeing her again right now made him almost nauseous. He was tired of this now. He didn’t want to keep pretending. Goddess.

“Ah, just as soon as possible. I can stay out this weekend. You can have me all night and all morning.”

“That’s so far away, Sylvain.” She’s whining. Sylvain feels like he’ll get a headache.

A little more firmly, Sylvain presses his hands against her hips to put a little space between them. “I know, I know, I know.” _Ah shit, that felt like one too many I know’s._ “But I really do have to get back. I’m sorry, babe.”

Hardly.

\---

It feels like a miracle when she finally lets him leave. The cold night air of the walk back is bracing, and Sylvain closes his eyes on the parts of the walk he has well-memorized. It’s a lot of the walk. Much to the disdain of all his closest friends, Sylvain could take up a side job as a tour guide of the local town. He knows the streets, and the ins and the outs better than anyone else temporarily staying at Garreg Mach, although all the stops would be places to meet women, because he doesn’t spend much of his time here if it isn’t spent looking for distractions in the form of any woman who will pay him the time of day. 

Which is most all women. He rubs out a crease forming between his eyebrows. 

Sylvain doesn’t want to put a lot of thought into tonight. Things aren’t really supposed to go this way. Women want to fuck him, and Sylvain wants to lose himself for a little while. He thinks there’s probably something wrong with him. Nothing he does makes any sense. If he plays an endless double-bluff, he won’t even be able to figure himself out, right? And then he won’t have to face the truth of who he is.

His shoes echo on the stone as he makes his way back through the courtyards of Garreg Mach and towards his dorm room. Garreg Mach is another contradiction, a place he thinks he loves and hates all at once. The freedom to be away from his family makes it easier to breathe, but the expectations placed on him here, to become the next Margrave, are suffocating. He deliberately lets his thoughts wander in class, but he has to carefully target them, or they’ll drift to a place he doesn’t want them to go. Most days, he stares at the back of Felix’s neck, and that keeps his mind occupied. 

That’s another thing Garreg Mach has going for it. 

Sylvain slows to a snail pace as he creeps up the stairs, brown eyes watching the door closest like a hawk. He holds his breath, but he doesn’t hear any shuffling. It’s usually fine. Ingrid is unrefined in many ways that Sylvain adores, one of which is the way she sleeps deeper than any man he’s ever known. Sometimes, she snores, which he finds pretty darling. He doesn’t hear snores tonight, but he won’t chance the silence either, only walking normally when he’s put a little more distance between himself and his number one critic.

One year at the Officer’s Academy is hardly enough. Sylvain is trying to drag it out. Who would have ever thought he’d want to be in school longer? But the miles between Fhirdiad, Gautier, Galatea, and Fraldarius are just a few yards at the monastery. His friends are close to him. They don’t always get along, but having them close warms his heart. Thinking about being so far apart again becomes unbearable, if he allows it to happen. 

The end of the hallway shows itself in the dark, and Sylvain knows there are only a few more doors before he reaches his own room. His fingers trail on the door of the room two doors down. The polished wood is smooth against the calloused pads of his fingers.

He wants one wooden door to be the maximum amount of distance allowed between himself and Felix. 

Or… one Dimitri’s room. He’ll have to tolerate that instead. His fingers lift off the wood, and he walks on, past Dimitri’s door and into his own room. He closes the door as silently as possible. Dimitri is less cold and cruel than Ingrid, but he is equally as disapproving. He doesn’t want to wake the prince, but he especially doesn’t want to wake the prince _and_ incite a lecture. 

He strips out of enough clothes to be comfortable and flops into bed. He is not tired at all, which is the worst thing he can imagine. The pro about spending the night fucking is the eventual exhaustion that sets in and weighs his body down. Forces his eyes to close, his mind to go silent. 

Not like this. The racing of his own thoughts threatens him with whiplash. He closes his eyes, and it feels like they get louder. Why couldn’t he just fuck that girl? What was wrong with him? Well, what wasn’t? Why did she even want to fuck him? One answer always crept into his mind, and it frustrated him to no end. He wanted to be liked. He wanted to be wanted, and maybe he let this shit happen to him. If people fixated on his Crest, it was a crutch. If it didn’t work, they were using him. They wanted his Crest, and he saw through it. Really--if he blamed his Crest, he didn’t have to blame his personality, right?

He was a rotten person, though. He must have been. If he wracked his brain, when was the last time someone spoke fondly of him? He could think of Byleth lecturing him about his interests, his ‘distractions,’ with a stern look on his face and his blank eyes boring into him, even if Sylvain laughed it off. Dimitri was always diplomatic, but even his polite chiding was still chiding. Ingrid made it clear he was a hassle. And--he felt bad about being a hassle. How much longer would Ingrid put up with cleaning up his messes? How long would Dimitri put up with his future Margrave fucking around?

And Felix. Felix spoke only with sharpness now, and it cut more than anything else. Felix tutted at him like he didn’t want to waste breath on him, and looked away from him like Sylvain wasn’t worth looking at. Sylvain almost never wanted to train, but he also never said no when Felix asked him. Felix was asking less and less now. Sylvain picked up the slack, because he would always laugh off the rejection and the harsh words and tell Felix he didn’t mean them, even if Felix didn’t say, you’re right, I didn’t mean them. Even if Felix didn’t say, I’m glad you offered, I want you here. The Felix from his childhood who idolized him and depended on him was so far away now. Goddess, and Felix saw through everyone anyway. He probably knew how repulsive Sylvain was. It probably felt like Felix was pulling away from him because he _was_.

 _Fuck, fuck._ He was spiraling. He had to stop. Was he getting into his own head? If he was honest, he didn’t know. Felix never gave him reassurance. Maybe Felix didn’t think he needed it. That… that was a better thought than the idea that Felix didn’t _want_ to give him reassurance. After all, Sylvain desperately, desperately wanted his friends to think he was above pain. Rejection couldn’t hurt him. Harsh words and complaints were like jokes to him. The rumors that spread about him through Garreg Mach weren’t a bad thing, because at least someone was talking about him, right? Sylvain couldn’t be hurt, and so he didn’t need anyone to sugarcoat things for him. Actually, the idea of things being sugarcoated made his skin crawl too. 

Pity was sickening. But he didn’t know what was worse. Being pitied by Felix, or being hated by him. The vulnerability turned his insides, but maybe being pitied could have perks, at the very least.

It was hard to imagine Felix the way he used to be four years ago now, and it was almost unbelievable that he had changed so much. Sylvain knew why, of course, but he couldn’t let his thoughts drift that far. Had it been four years since he’d seen a genuine smile on Felix’s face? Well--no. Maybe four years since he’d seen a smile Felix didn’t try to hide. But he got to see tiny, concealed smiles when the dining hall served a favorite of his. Or the way his lips twisted up on a good day when Sylvain teased Dimitri and he could almost remember how they were before Dimitri and Felix’s relationship got so fucked. _Don’t go there. Stay here. Stay with his smile._

For once, he didn’t let his thoughts spiral. It was too easy to get wrapped up in the details of Felix, even if this train of thought had started at toying with the idea of Felix despising him. He hadn’t really resolved that, but he was allowed distractions, was he not? His favorite distraction, Felix’s neck, crept back into his mind, and he thought about the loose strands of hair on the back of his neck, or the days when Felix missed a thicker strand when he tied his hair up. Sylvain would actually die to be able to fix his hair for him, to untie his hair and tie it back for him. To linger so close, and pretend he had to, because maybe he didn’t know how to tie his hair up. His fingers could trace the nape of his neck again and again, to ensure he didn’t miss any hair, run his fingers through his scalp, and maybe Felix would relax into it. Sylvain can’t imagine him saying thank you, because his imagination isn’t that boundless, but he’s happy enough with the mental image he’s conjured, and his fingers have the faintest memory of how smooth Felix’s thin hair feels, and that’s enough.

His tongue runs over his lips, and he thinks about kissing his neck. His breath is heavy now, and his eyes close for a moment. How many times has he thought about this now? He’s lost count, in truth. Sylvain is almost positive that his neck will taste of sweat, because Felix starts almost every day in the training arena, and usually returns over the course of the day. He never thought he’d want to taste sweat so bad. His front teeth run over his lower lip, and pinch the skin just so--and Sylvain lets his mind think instead about using his teeth on Felix’s neck. He can hear Felix gasp in his ears, and the sound goes straight to his dick, hissing softly as he considers whether to indulge himself.

Why not indulge himself, though?

He used to feel bad about this sort of thing. It always felt like he should, and there were so many reasons. In truth, Felix has been through terrible ordeals in his life, and--in truth, Sylvain has too, but he would do absolutely anything to push such thoughts so far from the bounds of his mind that sometimes they slip into the realm of denial. Is it right to think about his best friend this way, when Felix is struggling with so much? And Felix is like Sylvain. Felix wants to pretend he’s strong, and he doesn’t feel, and nothing hurts him. And Goddess, he is strong. Sylvain’s mind trails off and he lets his eyes close while his hands slide under the shirt buttons of the shirt he foolishly chose to leave on. His hands run over his own chest, and he lets his mind imagine doing the same with Felix. He’s torn about the buttons. A part of him thinks he wants--needs to basically pop the buttons and touch Felix with desperation. Whisper against his chest how strong he is, how incredible, how highly Sylvain thinks of him. Another part of him thinks slow, gentle--maybe agonizingly slow would be best. He could kiss a trail down his skin to follow the buttons and feel Felix’s chest tremble against his lips. Ah, he’s desperate, but he wants to treat Felix with care, too. His friend is a virgin, without a doubt, and the way his face goes red and his voice raises in volume, he isn’t sure he’s ever even kissed anyone. Sylvain would treat him with so much care. He’d do anything to take care of him.

Which feels like an oxymoron when he’s using his best friend to fuel his sexual fantasies, but he’s too far gone to stop now. He can’t ever stop himself anymore when this starts. Sylvain loves sex. He loves the pleasure, the heat, the mess, but he thinks--so secretly that he rarely admits it to himself, even--that he likes the validation and the intimacy more than anything. Fucking girls whose names, frankly, escape him will never get old, but the more he lets his thoughts wander to his best friend, the harder it is for anyone to compare to him again. It’s pathetic to think he couldn’t get it up earlier tonight for a gorgeous girl who wanted him, who he could have had easily, but now that he’s alone in his room masturbating, he feels like he’s harder than he’s been in ages. If his fantasies were realities, he wouldn’t rush like this. He’d drag everything out. The though of rushing through an encounter with Felix is ludicrous. There would be so much to commit to memory. He’d never want to forget the way his hipbones feel under his thumbs, the way his sweat glistens on his abs, the sticky heat of Felix’s muscular thighs pressed to his body. The man’s body is a godsend. He knows his best friend is frustrated that he’s not as built as Sylvain, despite putting far more effort in, but he’s very muscular, despite his slight frame. Sylvain has wondered for ages how he’s grown into his body. It keeps him up at night, in this pathetic way.

Although he hasn’t touched his own dick yet, there’s already precum gathering, and so he decides that he doesn’t have patience to reach for his oil. His hands are too large to imagine as Felix’s, tragically, and without the tactile sensation, his imagination isn’t sharp enough to feel Felix’s slender, calloused fingers. His own fingers slide between his lips and he rolls his tongue around them, fixated on doing the same to Felix. Felix would call him obscene for it. At least fucking is practical. Well… less so with two men. Felix wouldn’t understand the practical purpose of Sylvain needing his fingers in his mouth, but Sylvain would show him. He doesn’t think he’d get as far as an admittance that Sylvain is right, but he can visualize the exact shade of red his face would burn. He arches back into his pillow, and he can feel how hot his face would be. Felix wouldn’t want to make noise, he feels sure of that. Even if they were alone, in the middle of nowhere, Sylvain thinks that the man would bite his lip or cover his mouth to keep from making noise, and it would make Sylvain desperate to drag those sounds out of him. He can’t even imagine how they would sound, but he tries to borrow some of the sounds he makes during training for it. It’s going to make training against Felix in the future impossible, but the instant gratification of this moment was worth so much more right now than the mess he would have to deal with in the future. 

As erotic as Felix’s body is and as much as he wants to experience every individual centimeter of skin, he knows he would want to fuck him face to face. The idea of missing a single expression on his face is unfathomable, and besides that, the mental image of Felix riding his dick is nearly enough to end him then and there. But he fixates more on all of the intimacy of it. It’s something he chases constantly. It’s always out of his grasp. Dimitri has told him before that Sylvain’s ‘methods’ won’t give him the love he needs, and Sylvain shrugs him off and refuses to listen, but there’s truth to the prince's words. Sex is good, and he’s not giving it up. But Felix’s hitching breaths are falling hot on his cheeks, and he tilts his head towards Felix’s imagined one, seeking the rush of just the faintest moment of contact between them. He doesn’t think Felix would know what to do with his hands--he thinks they would just squeeze his shoulders, like Felix would need the constant grounding, but he loves that the man isn’t experienced, smooth, or skilled. He loves the earnest reactions he’d draw out of the man, the whimpered noises he couldn’t bite back. The honesty of Felix being too overwhelmed for a front, and the vulnerability, of both of them, to trust each other with this. It’s all--it’s all too much. Sylvain feels as overwhelmed as Felix, but he doesn’t want it to end. He never wants the moment to end.

The orgasm never feels as good as he expects it to. Maybe because it brings the sobering reality of being alone in his bedroom getting himself off to his best friend two rooms down. Maybe because fantasizing just about romance without the sex part feels so pathetic that Sylvain can’t even entertain the thought of the thought for more than a moment. Maybe it’s because his body is so flushed that the air suddenly feels freezing against him, and the cold reminds him that there’s no warm body beside him. Sylvain wipes his hand on his shirt and slumps back into his pillow for a moment as he closes his eyes. 

He didn’t even get to a kiss. And--what an embarrassing thing to sulk over.

With his eyes closed, the darkness creeps up on Sylvain for a moment, before he opens his eyes and props himself back up again. His shirt finally comes off, as well as any other clothes he messed up. He considers leaving them on the floor, but there’s always the possibility Felix will wake him up by coming into his room, and even Sylvain doesn’t know if he’s smooth enough to talk his way out of that one. A quick clean up is good enough, and he grabs something resembling pajamas, although his body still feels so hot, and now, so heavy. He collapses back into bed and his mattress feels amazing.

His fingers move to his lips again, index finger gently touching the soft skin and ghosting his touch to keep it as soft as possible. He’s gotten so tired now. So drowsy. But he didn’t get a kiss, and he wants one. He would beg, unabashedly for a kiss from Felix, so he was begging his mind unabashedly to let him imagine it, but Goddess, was it getting hard to think.

Sylvain couldn’t quite manage before his breathing evened out, and his thoughts were finally calm enough to let him sleep. He’d just thought of the man’s lips as they drifted off, and he hoped that whatever breakfast was tomorrow, Felix liked it enough for Sylvain to see his smile.


End file.
